Who's Unhappy
by maggiepollitt
Summary: Naruto is trailing his once friends. Is it possible to capture time?


Author: maggiepollitt

Rating: G, but it has just begun... Oh wait, occasional cursing and underage drinking make it... well, PG, I guess. So far, nothing sexual.

Summary: Naruto is trailing his once friends. Is it possible to capture ruthless time and cure old wounds?

Warnings: Au, OFC, but she's just a link I needed to put this together.

Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine. Not yet.

Review please so that I would know whether to go on with this or not. Sorry for the mistakes.

_Yet who are we, whence sprung,_

_Since out of all these years  
Just empty talk remains  
When we are gone from here?_

_B. Pasternak, The poems of Doctor Zhivago_

**12 years before the actual story begins...**

_Hime hated being punished. She hated the room she had to stay in, hated not being able to go out. The girl's actual name was Hitomi, but everyone she knew called her Hime – 'a princess'. The name suited her, she was indeed a proud and reckless little princess with beautiful dark hair. She hated her hair, actually, she never could brush them properly, she envied other girls whose heads were always so nice – never a hair out of place. _

_Hime had been told to do something with her own hair and she had tried – all in vain, so the girl had curled up in bed. She'd been thinking of nothing in particular. To tell the truth, she had simply dozed off. Suddenly she'd heard noises... as if somebody'd been about to enter the room. Hime had sat bolt upright, having prepared herself to listen out for the doorknob to turn. She had considered playing some evil joke with the one who must have been meant to lecture her. God, she hated all those people telling her to behave! She'd caught a glimpse of something dark and had frozen on the spot. The boy that had just entered the bedroom stood still, hands in pockets. And then, as if the spell had been broken, Hime'd run to him and had stopped abruptly her face less than an inch away from his chest. She'd looked up and for a minute she'd seemed to be drinking in every little detail, every wrinkle if there had been any. _

"_Like a doll" she'd whispered, _

_Iruka had almost dropped his keys as he'd overheard it. The girl was unbelievable! And when he thought nothing could have been worse than that she'd cupped the boy's face, staring at him in silent awe. Her hand had grazed his cheek. Hime couldn't take her eyes off him, she'd never seen anyone that beautiful in her entire life. His skin had been almost transparent, she could see the veins, at least that would've have explained the bluish shade of his skin. Yet it'd been so unbelievably pale. Hime had once seen a porcelain doll. It'd been so perfect, she'd never dreamt of seeing such beauty again. She had been tracing imaginary lines on his face, enchanted, silent. Iruka had found himself surprised the boy hadn't answered to that intrusion in his personal space._

"_Like a doll" Hime exhaled again her finger brushing the tip of his nose._

"_If you say so," the boy shrugged._

"_You're silly" the tension had been faded with the obnoxiously loud voice. "He's not a doll, can't you see?"_

"_Don't you dare call a lady silly!" the blond boy who must have been the possessor of the loud voice had been interrupted by the girl with... pink hair. Hime had never seen such hair._

"_She's too young – she's not a lady yet. Besides, it's silly, now is it? Sasuke's not a doll. Although, he looks like doll. You know what? Maybe, she's right? You hear me, Sasuke-bastard? You don't talk much, you're..._

_Bam! The pink haired girl had smashed her arm hard into the blond's neck._

"_Wha- That's not even fair! What did I say? Well maybe you're not as good as you think you are, you asshole, and it must piss you off to no end that even this young lady can see through your 'I'm-better-than-you' appearance, whereas all you are is just a scrawny ass and..._

_Bam! The raven haired boy had punched him on the nose, not too hard, though. It hadn't hurt at all, but damn, it was embarrassing. The blond boy began pouting._

"_But I **am** better than you" the raven smirked. "Besides, I'm not scrawny, it's just that you're buff. " The blond looked positively pissed with the comment. The pink haired girl turned to Hime._

"_I'm Sakura. This is Sasuke and," she motioned at the direction of the blond "this is Naruto. What is your name?"_

"_Hime" the girl had summoned all her dignity and it must have made an impression. Well, perhaps, not exactly what she'd expected. Naruto burst out in laughter._

"_Is it a princess in Japan?" he choked between the fits of laughter. "You're not a bit like one. Are you a real princess?"_

"_Yes, I am" Hime cut him off sharply. "And you're a loudmouth. No real princess would've wanted to talk to you"_

_The blond boy seemed to have choked on his own words._

"_I like her" the raven haired boy deadpanned. Naruto seemed to be alternating between frowning and pouting. Sakura gave a short laughter. _

_Iruka smiled at Hime._

"_I just wanted you to get to know some of my former students" he explained to her._

"_You've got beautiful hair, Hime" Sakura knelt in front of the girl. _

"_It went wild" Hime complained. Well, she surely couldn't let herself sound pathetic. So, it was more like she'd informed one of her maids of the little problem she'd stumbled upon. Sakura smiled._

"_lI'll help you tame it. Just don't let anyone do it to yourself." Hime failed to understand what that could've meant then. She simply smiled back. _

_That day had been the most precious jewel in her little collection of good memories. She'd cut her hair short not so long after Sakura had gone away from the town so that no one could've reprimanded her. Hime wished sometimes she'd been able to cut herself off the memories._

**These days**

"I c-can't hear you! 's t-too n'sy here"

"Let's get out of here, then, baby" the girl threw her hand around the blond's neck.

"Where we're goin'?" the guy inquired, without much enthusiasm, though.

"You'll see, sweetie" the girl replied, trying to lift a huge lump of a guy leaning on her.

She finally managed to get him standing and they stumbled towards the exit.

"Just follow me, now, baby!" the girl sing-songed.

"Where'd ya go, baby?" the guy asked peering in the darkness intensively.

"Follow me!"

He staggered towards the voice.

"Where'd you hide, baby? Baby? C-can't see you! C'me on! Lemme see ya!"

Somehow he'd noticed somebody'd been standing beside him. He swiveled around and fell into darkness.

His head ached. His legs ached. His whole body ached and he felt an insistent urge to vomit. He opened his eyes and closed them right away with a moan.

"Kill me" he muttered, bending over the edge of the bed.

"Almost done" was a calm reply.

"Is it God speaking?" the poor guy mumbled. "I dunno... oh... I'm not good enough to go to heaven yet.. oh.. my head"

"Naruto, " he heard somebody whisper. It seemed loud enough to him, but still he appreciated somebody's attempts to please his poor head. Then he remembered who the girl was and it occurred to him that as she'd never been louder, maybe, she wasn't exactly pitying him. Oh God! Too complicated a thought for a wrecked brain to produce.

"H-hinata" he choked out. "H-heaven it is. Deffffinitely" With that he passed out again. His next return to reality had been slightly less painful. Lifting his head from the pillow hadn't killed him instantly, that is. Naruto opened one eye. That felt... normal. He opened the second one and stared at the indifferent redhead standing next to the window.

"G-gaara" Naruto acknowledged the other's presence. The said Gaara shifted his gaze from the landscape behind the window to his friend.

"A helluva hangover" Naruto complained.

"There's more to it than a simple hangover" Gaara shrugged. "Basically, you'd been hit on the head really hard. Your credit card and driver's license are missing. Which can be a coincidence, of course. Is it?"

"Too much." Naruto groaned. "You want too much from me. I want to vomit. And I need to pee. And... oh fuck!"

Twenty five minutes and series of moans and violent cursing later Naruto had found himself feeling positively alive.

"Fuck! I heard Hinata, didn't I? Or, was I dreaming? It would've been a great dream then, It's not like I welcome the thought of Hinata seeing me in a situation like that, but she could've been an angel in my heaven-sent dream"

"It wasn't Hinata and you haven't just dreamt this up" Gaara informed him.

"How's that?"

"The girl called me on my cell to say she'd been looking for you. She ensured me she had some connections to you." Gaara paused and went on reluctantly, "She mentioned the three of you, actually"

Naruto's head snapped up.

"The three - ? What's her name?"

"Hime, if that counts as a name. Sounds like a nickname to me"

"Hime" Naruto repeated breathlessly.

"She said she used to hang out with you back there, in Jersey. With the three of you. She's somewhere near eighteen. A brunette with hazel eyes...

Naruto jumped up

"Where's she?"

"In the next room. You seemed unavailable..."

Naruto rushed out. The girl looked different from the one he'd known. Yet, there she stood, his princess.

"Hey, little sister!' Naruto growled, wrapping his arms around her. "You're so... so... You're a grown-up! You've grown into a great babe"

Gaara's expression clearly said "beyond hopeless". And it was the moment when Naruto realised he wasn't at home, the room seemed slightly familiar, though.

"Where am I?" he asked his inner self wondering if it wasn't a bit too late since he'd been awake.. for how long exactly?

"In my guest bedroom" Gaara kindly clarified his geographical position. As silence was his response he went on in his usual monotonous voice. "USA, New York City..

"I know _that,_ thank you" Naruto stopped him. Was it him or Gaara actually sounded positively sure Naruto might not know where the hell both of them had been living for the past six years? Well, it had been longer in Gaara's case, but that was not the point.

"And you spent about four hours in my other guest-bedroom plastered on the sofa" Gaara informed. Naruto blinked.

"Just in case you want to know" the redhead explained casually. Well, it's not like he sounded somehow different from his usual rather bored and matter-of-factly manner, but those who knew him well, usually could tell whether he was being casual or pissed off.

Gaara was a wardrobe stylist. To Naruto he looked like a bum or the only survivor of a ship-wreck who'd just come back home after twenty eight years of unplanned vacation on the deserted island. Naruto had his own idea of how Gaara got in the business. He was just so scary that when and if anybody tried to point out he looked like a weirdo, which he was, they eventually ended up telling him he looked gorgeous. Somehow he managed to turn his baggy outfits into extremely stylish items without actually changing anything about his looks. He was very popular among those who wanted to look non-con, but lacked fantasy or courage. Gaara had both plus he was somewhat grunge himself and his clients could do nothing but follow his path. Needless to say, Gaara was reasonably famous - just a little bit not enough to become totally mainstream, but awfully close to that, whether it was because people actually fell for his sense of fashion or because they thought he was a maniac and thus had to treat him with utmost respect. Naruto was perhaps the only one who had actually said out loud what he saw of Gaara's looks and the looks of his victims aka clients. But that happened once only, it was when they saw each other for the first time. To everybody's surprise Gaara hadn't killed him on the spot. More than that, they had become really good friends. But it looked like Gaara decided to make an exception and it didn't mean he approved Naruto's style, oh dear, was there any?

"So, how have you been doing? Did you come here for me?"

"Who do you think you are? Sarah Jessica Parker?" Hime snorted.

"Er.. who?" Naruto gaped at his old friend.

"She lives in NYC. Never mind. I just got bored. And I missed you. All of you"

"Have you heard from Sakura or Sasuke?"

"No. They chose not to keep in touch. You called Iruka, after all. So, I just had to beat your address out of him."

"You had to – what?" Naruto could only stare.

"It's a metaphor. Your guardian seemed to disapprove my going here. You know how he is." Hime watched Gaara mix a cocktail.

"Motherly" Naruto nodded. "Wait - ... What about Sasuke's guardian? Why didn't you go to Kakashi?"

"I would have, had he not moved out of the town" Hime was now observing something that was pure alcohol – no doubts about that.

"You want something sweet and pink, you go out." Gaara instructed in a voice that obviously suggested that he was highly unlikely to debate on the legality of underage drinking.

"Out? As in, sold his belongings and left the country? Or, simply moved to the nearest village?"

"I'd say 'collected his belongings, left the apartment to Iruka and left in the unknown direction' perfectly describes it" Hime was too busy hypnotising her glass to look up at her old friend.

"What's the point in leaving one village for the other?" Gaara wandered. Although it didn't sound like a question, more like a statement.

"You' can't possibly think she can drink this!" Naruto came back to reality just to realise Hime was about to take in a mouthful of the liquid that could not be... Could not...

"Yes, I can. Why?" Now, if Gaara could sound genuinely surprised that would be it.

"She's a child! She doesn't even vote!!!" Naruto hollered.

"Neither do I" Gaara shrugged. Short yelp of pure indignation was the only reply he got.

Naruto was looking through his phone book. How possibly could he not have his best friends' numbers there? Did it mean he was a heartless dumbass not worrying about people a bit? Then again, he'd lost more than three cellphones over the course of last six years. And none of his friends actually bothered to call him. He could have stopped worrying if the thought of his number having changed hadn't crossed his mind. Why his own brain couldn't let him enjoy the blissful ignorance? So, basically, he knew nothing of people who had been his family once. Gaara was a great friend, of course, not very emotional, but one can't have everything. Besides, Sasuke wasn't overly emotional either. Although he was a completely different type of ever-silent uninterested bastard. He was just different. Naruto's heart skipped a beat. He used to be the one to claim their attention. How could it happen so that he actually had become the one to let them down? His thoughts were a mess as well as his feelings. He could think of many ways to justify himself, but all of them failed to hold good. He felt guilty. In four in the morning he knew what he was going to do. It took him three hours, two shots of whisky, two liters of coffee, he hated both beverages, but since he stayed at Gaara's he had to put up with the latter's preferences.

Hime left that same day, but she brought back the memories of how the four of them used to be. No, mostly, the three of them. Didn't make it easier for Naruto. Thus, the decision.

Review please, or I'll die, It's not like I'm threatening you, but... wouldn't that be sad?

Huh?

OK, I knew it, why do I even bother to confirm my existence in those hilarious ways. Some people, - you hear me, - some people with red hair and a pretty little tattoo saying 'looove' have their own ways...


End file.
